a web extra. that's "viewpoint." stay tuned for "the war room." [♪ theme music ♪] i'm jennifer grandholm tonight in "the war room," so many glaring political liabilities, so little time. >> join me in welcoming the next president of the united states, paul ryan! ♪ >> every noun and then i am known to make a mistake. he is going to be the next vice president of the united states. >> where do we even start with this guy? there's his budget women's rights contraception, war on women, anti-green energy good-bye safety net, packer's fan, cheese head. well, at least he is supposed to

be a nice guy. >> like i said she must not be from iowa. ♪ >> nearly one in six americans are in poverty today. that's the highest rate in a generation. you know what? we're not going to take that. we're going to turn this thing around. [ cheers ] >> well that's newly minted romney running mate, attack dog paul ryan. there is no denying that ryan has star power, star power that mitt romney sorely lacks. according to the "boston globe" before the selection of ryan, you could count the number of supporters in the hundreds, and now they are in the thousands. and there in lies the problem with paul ryan.

he overshadows the man he hopes to serve alongside. look at them on "60 minutes" last night. >> that's not something which i would propose make smaller. >> take away the tax shelters enjoyed by the people at tax brackets, and you can lower taxes for everybody. >> it did seem like ryan was sort of stepping on the toes of the man at the top of the ticket. i'm just saying who is in charge? who is leading this ticket? actually it's paul ryan. he is the guy with the plan. literally, he is the guy in charge of this new narrow republican agenda. he energizes the base like romney never has. romney was weak to begin with and now he is weak and inconsequential, as he distances himself from ryan's budget and three times denied paul's

medicare plan today. as he does this distances, romney's so-called bold pick underscores his own weakness, he keeps shrinking smaller and smaller and ryan grows larger and larger. and while romney eclipse ryan in a lot things, they are infat waited with struggle-down economics. the problem is trickle down doesn't work. truck l down does not work. how many times do we have to try this grand experiment. but, you say, paul ryan is all about cutting. isn't that what is significant about his budget plan. not so fast. paul ryan has always believed in trickle down. he voted for the wars in iraq

and afghanistan. very expensive. he supported the auto bailout. he voted for tarp. he voted for the expansion of medicare part d, he voted for all of the things that ballooned the deficit under george bush and now he wants to blame obama for not fixing his mess fast enough. think about it, maybe the guy at the top of the ticket isn't the shrinking mitt romney, maybe it isn't even paul ryan maybe the top of the gop ticket are really just a couple of well quaffed versions of george w. bush. if you liked that movie the first time you'll love what romney and ryan have in store for us. you better really really like reruns. joining me now is a man who lives and breathes politics, a

man who has his fingers on the political pulse, willie brown. nice to see you. >> nice to see you. >> you wrote a column sunday saying it was a crazy choice. why. >> for all of the reasons you just read. if you are attempting to reach out and say i want to be the president for everybody, you go into a narrow vain and the first decision you make is one of exclusionary operations. paul ryan makes no sense, unless, of course, you have decided that this nation is going to be run by peoplelike paul ryan. this nation is going to serve only people like paul ryan. it is going to be a sophisticated tea party movement.

this nation is going to be about someone who is into no gun control, someone who would like to abolish medicare someone who would like to abolish medicaid and make sure that old people don't really survive. if you are into that then you have got paul ryan. >> does it not worry you, though, that you have seen over the weekend, this huge turnout. all sorts of excitement, isn't there something in that that troubles you? >> troubles me mightily. because as i said, i think that ticket is designed to play only to their defined voters. they don't care about independents. they don't care about women. they don't care about minorities. they don't care really about old people. it's the definition of the people that went for rick perry, and went for your favorite bachmann. >> my favorite, hey now wait a

second. [ laughter ] >> it really is. it's the sarah palin crowd. that's what this is all about. and believe me they believe if they can maximize turnout, they can reduce the number of democrating voters eligible in 25 states, decreasing the number of people who can participate, they can do exactly what george bush did in 2000, and that's become president. >> so you are the godfather of politics around here. can they do that? can they energize enough of this narrow band of base to get out to overcome the other democratics that they lack? >> only if the obama administration and the obama campaign operation falls asleep on the job. if they fall asleep on the job,

and they don't maximize their constituency in the same enthusiastic way then the romney/ryan ticket will be competitive. if the kind of effort that was made in 2008 on behalf of obama where independents went for obama in large numbers where young people between 18 and 35 went for obama in large numbers, where african-americans turned out to vote as if they were in someplace like south africa where people have not been allowed to vote for years and years and years, all of that was a level of enthusiasm and pride that drove the numbers dramatically in certain states. that's got to be done again. >> you -- you in the past have criticized the obama team for not gingg up that enthusiasm. do you think the selection of paul ryan will be enough to elevate enthusiasm on the

democratic side? >> i think mr. obama got a taste of what he needs to do over the weekend. literally the selection of paul ryan bushed obama to the sidelines for the last three or four days. the numbers you talked about moving up at the rallies, that had to send a shock to the obama team. and they now they have got to actually ask independents, please come with us. they have got to actually do what they have done with hispanics. they have got to do that with blacks and gays. they got to do that with their core base population. and this kind of reaction that he got over the weekend says to obama get on your job. >> so you know this is all about states, right, and of course florida being such a high percentage of older voters we

see that the governor of florida, mr. conservative actually decided to back off of supporting the ryan/romney medicare plan now. so you are seeing some key conservative republicans distancing themselves. so does -- do you think that they all realize on the republican side that florida has not just been put in play but that this selection takes florida out for the republicans? >> i think it is very clear as we speak the republicans have to have concluded that not only is florida probably out of play ohio is probably out of play in the same way and for the same reason. i.e. older people who really do need the components of what the administration of obama has been about. they need to get that. i'm telling you, all of those

old people who lived in new york during the summer months, and they go to florida during the winter months they are not going to put up with the nonsense, and coming out of play means you have to figure out where you are a republican where do i go to change the mixes and the results of particular states? i think if you looked at the map today, you would see probably more than 270 votes already in the obama campaign. >> yeah, for sure. and there's no way mitt romney can win this election if he loses florida and ohio. >> he is going to lose florida and ohio. all right. i'm sorry, mayor, i have got to go. that's the honorable willie brown, former mayor of san francisco. and up next, paul ryan this is your life. we'll look at how someone with

the political views of michele bachmann is going to play with rational voters. plus time restricts us from telling you everything wrong with the ryan budget but we'll get a good jump on it. and later where to hit this guy and how hard. it's a big night in "the war room." we are just getting started. number one brand. just minutes to make, then bake!

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♪ of course paul ryan's

famous for his extreme economic agenda, but his social policies are equally stunning. how bad are they? let's just say michele bachmann bad. take a look. on women's issues ryan says that he is has pro life as it gets. he cosponsored a personhood amendment, which means that life begins at fertilization which outlaws, abortion the morn-after pill some iuds, michele bachmann supported that as well. that's paul ryan. that's michele bachmann. and by the way also he went even further than bachmann when he voted for a law that would allow hospitals to refuse to administer an emergency abortion even if the women's life was in danger, the so-called let women die bill. on education paul ryan would slash pell grants. he also would allow interest

rates on pell grants to double. of course michele bachmann agrees. on gay rights he opposed the repeal of don't ask, don't tell. he also opposes adoption rights for same-sex couples, just like michele bachmann. more on guns. he is against the 72-hour background check. his pro gun policies earned him an a grade from the nra just like michele bachmann. on immigration he voted against the dream act, just like michele bachmann. on the safety net he would privatize medicare, and he has introduced a bill to proi voo tiez social security as well and bachmann backs his plans on both of those measures. in fact vote view ranked ryan and bachmann almost dead even in

their conservative voting records. and how does he stack up with previous vice presidential picks? this is a graph for the past -- since 1900 -- actually the graph shows recent vice presidential picks, but paul ryan would be the most idealogical pick this shows he is more conservative even than all recent republicans going back to 1900. more than nixon and cheney. so how are voters going to respond to all of this? joining me now is celinda lake, a democratic pollster and president of lake research partners. celinda, thank you so much for joining us again inside "the war room." >> thank you for having me. >> you bet. how do you think the pick is going to impact voters in the

near term? are we going to see a bump over the next couple of days? >> i think you might see a little bit of a bump from republicans solidifying. in fact 25% of romney voters said they would consider someone else. only 37% of romney voters said that they were picking their candidate because they actually liked romney. and enthusiasm amongst republicans was declining. but when voters begin to really understand paul ryan's beliefs they are going to be appalled. and this nomination more than anything else is going to send independents running to the democrats, and solidify the women's vote in a way that was unimaginable before now.

>> which of the social issues do you think are most ripe for the obama team to attack given the polling data you have. >> i think it's a combination, actually. here is someone who just doesn't get your life at all. so if you are a baby boomer women, you remember when abortion was illegal. he wants to make it illegal again. he wants to decide in your personal life even when you are faced with something as tragic as a very deformed fetus, rape and incest your health is crisis, he wants to outlaw all abortion, and you have the tragedy of a miscarriage happening, and paul ryan is going to come in with the government and investigate your life. and then if you survive all of that, he doesn't care if you are paid equally, he voted against

equal pay enforcement, and then he'll take away your medicare and social security if you are a 52-year-old woman and you vote for this man, you really need to ask yourself what you are thinking. >> you have said it so beautifully, and the question is and the concern a number of us today have is how does this guy get elected in his district? [ laughter ] >> well, it's true, but i think all politics is local. and this is a guy who is very approachable. he is a straight talker. he tells it like it is i think probably has good constituency service. he has a very good blue collar appeal, but he has got the likability factor. he has got the serving his district well factor. standing up telling it like it is that is really different than being president of the

entire united states. and romney wanted to argue that barack obama was not up to the job, and then he picked a 42 year old who has no foreign policy experiences, and has these views? this is a man who is not up to the job. >> well it's going to be a fascinating ride to see how this unfolds. i'm going back to women for just a moment. there was a recent study of so-called wal-mart moms which shows they are more concerns with economic issues than women's issues. could paul ryan help mitt romney with that sort of wal-mart mom group if they say away from social issues? >> it's an interesting thing, because of course part of paul ryan is he doesn't want to stay away from social issues and it's your comparison to michele bachmann that is so significant.

and when they were introducing all of this legislation on planned parenthood and birth control, and supporting people with sonograms, a woman said you know, rome is burning, and he is worried about my birth control? i thought that was settled in 1960. he doesn't get to the economic issues because he is so busy interfering if your private life, and then he doesn't support equal pay, demanding insurance company cover preventtive care, or insurance companies can't assign you unequal rates. he fails on all counts. >> if he is going to have trouble with women on issues and trouble with seniors, from an electoral map issue how can this pick make sense? >> i don't think they thought it through. and i think most telling was

when they canceled the florida trip today, and didn't bring paul ryan to florida. you put florida more in the democratic camp. solidified iowa, and if you lose -- not only do you have ohio, as the mayor said but if you lose iowa and florida, you can't put it together. >> yeah, i don't see it either. celinda lake, a democratic pollster and president of lake research partners, thank you again for joining us inside "the war room." >> thank for having me. >> up next what was paul ryan doing before he started making republican pundits melt like teenage girls? we'll show you. and it's up next only on "the war room."

you're back inside "the war room." i'm jennifer grandholm. we came across an interesting

tidbit today. there was an cnn poll taken before paul ryan was picked that found that 54% of those surveyed did not know enough about him to even form an opinion. so we wanted to give a little bit of background. ryan is 42 years old. he has served in congress since 1998. he was just 28 years old when he was first elected. he was the youngest member of the in-coming freshman class. he never served in state politics. instead he spent his college years in washington working for those like jack kemp he hails from the town of janesville where his family runs a successful construction company.

janesville is about a full percentage point higher than the national average. his father died when he was just 16. and he got help in paying for college by using his father's social security benefits. he is married, has three children, and he likes to stay in shape with p-90x, hunt deer and catch giant cat fish bare-handed at his texas ranch. coming to us tonight from washington, d.c. is andy krol who hails from comma zoo, michigan. who is a wolverine. welcome into "the war room." >> that's quite an introduction. good to be back.

>> it's the stuff you are most proud of i know. tell us about the paul ryan's district? >> his hometown janesville. it is the seat of the county. they elected barack obama, and gave him nearly twice as many votes as john mccain. in the june recall election, rock county opted for tom barrett in the race over governor walker. until december 2008 the gm plant was the pulsing heart of the city. the plant shuts down and janesville is gutted and the city has yet to recover. paul ryan and his family are sort of celebrities there they are known as the kenendys of janesville, for whatever that is

worth. but this is hardly a bashian of right-wing politics. >> i don't know that the kenendys would want him claiming that name so much. but if this is sort of a blue collar place it has got a gm plant, it's a working town how is guy elected there when he is so conservative? >> he is not the conservative fire brand -- the supply side trickle down warrior that he is in washington in janesville. if you talk to people from janesville, he is more known as a guy who goes to washington. he says good things about manufacturing. he talks about but doesn't act on trying to help the working class. he has a much more low-key milder personality and milder reputation back home in his district than in washington. and it is also worth noting that

his district like i said earlier is on the fence politically. it was redistricted by the walker administration this year to become more republican and that's only going to benefit him if he tries to hold on to his seat if he doesn't end up in the white house in november. >> the latest poll out of wisconsin, which was taken before ryan was added to ticket shows president obama ahead. do you think he addition of paul ryan makes him more competitive in wisconsin? >> history shows the ticket gets maybe 1 or 2 percentage points from a vice presidential candidate in the candidate's home state. again, wisconsin went for barack obama in 2008. it has a strong democratic tradition, and a big democratic base in milwaukee, and it's really an uphill battle for mitt

romney. romney and the super paccing supporting him are going to spend big money. and it's in play for romney and whether that's realistic or not, it doesn't look like that now. >> you spend a lot of time covering dark money and super pacs, what is the reaction of the koch bothers and sheldoned a elson. >> the koch brothers without a doubt love it. he says all the right things. he is all about free market and employees of koch industries are the six largest donors to paul ryan throughout his career. he has spoken at their donor retreats. as for shellen adelson he is

going to meet paul ryan very soon. and it's no doubt that he is a hit for the big conservative donors, and he will bring in the big buck. >> in fact andy, it looks like there has been a pac that was created just to defend paul ryan. my guess is they are going to go to the koch brothers the adelsons, to fill up that money. >> without a doubt just as governor scott wilson has been catapulted to celebrity status paul ryan has been in that place much longer than walker. >> so fascinating. andy krol, i know you have been really great on wisconsin. i wanted to initially get you on

to talk about the senate race. but we'll have to have you back. coming up, mitt romney and the republicans may be suck running with paul ryan's budget now, but that doesn't mean they have to tell the truth about it. and then later, brett ehrlich makes a visit to the loser's locker room. >> what effect is romney's vp decision having on others? coming up, i'll have all of the answers, some real some fake. don't go away. all fake.

there's one thing that mitt romney's complain has been consistent on is whatever attack the obama campaign throws at him, romney throws it right back. so now with romney's team trying to explain away paul ryan's plan to cut hundreds of billions of dollars for medicare republicans are arguing that it is in fact president obama who

is out to get medicare. take a listen to this. >> even president obama who has cut $700 billion from medicare -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> do you support $700 billion in medicare cuts -- >> poor rachel was taking the brunt of it. but here is also reince preibus going even further. >> this president stole -- he didn't cut medicare -- he stole $700 billion from medicare to fund obamacare. if any person in the entire debate has blood on their hands in regard to medicare, it's barack obama. >> oh, my god that guy is insane. the president stole $700 million, stole it? not exactly. here is the truth. the obama administration was able to take savings from the medicare program and then

reinvest those savings back into the medicare program to extent its life by eight years. what were the savings, how much of the savings came from paying providers, doctors, hospitals differently. so in the current system doctors are paid for each service that's performed. so the incentive to make more money is to overprescribe and reward more procedures financially. under the new system doctors are rewarded for health outcomes. now that change doesn't cut benefits, it doesn't cut services, it's just a really smart way to get savings and better outcomes from the medicare program. so where does this idea that the president was stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from medicare come from? why, of course from the source of all great ideas. michele bachmann. >> the system simply has to be reformed in order for it to

work. we know president obama stole over $500 billion out of medicare to switch it over to obamacare. >> she may not have survived the primaries, but her loony ideas have. the kaiser family foundation found that 70% of americans want to keep it the way it is, just 25% want to change it to a paul ryan-like voucher system. here to help guide the plan co-director of the center for economic and policy research and is joining us from washington, d.c. tonight. dean thank you so much for joining us inside "the war room" to explain it all. >> thanks a lot for having me on. >> you bet, dean so what would medicare look like under mitt romney/paul ryan? >> basically what they do -- and

this is their proposal -- this is in writing. you can look it up. what they do is they propose fazing in 2022, 2024 people who turn 65 in that year instead of getting the traditional medicare would get a voucher of $8,000 a year, and they can use that for buying insurance in the private market. and the constructional budget office analysis is that would not be enough to buy a medicare equivalent policy and the gap would go enormously so that once you got out, ten, 20 30 years, the voucher wouldn't cover anything. >> so much more would seniors have to pay under that system five or ten years down the road? >> well, over the 75-year planning horizon for medicare it would raise the cost to the country of $34 trillion to buy

medicare-equivalent policies. so that's real money. medicare is a much more efficient system and it is one of these things we really don't have to argue over. you have representative ryan running around with great idea we're going into introduce the private market in healthcare, and you go we have had that and we even have it within medicare. we have medicare advantage, and that costs more not less. >> because of course the insurance company is the middleman. >> exactly. and medicare turns out to be a very efficient way to provide care. they get into this thing, like you like the government. i don't care. if it costs us less, fine. >> i totally agree. >> but we have been experimenting with that for decades, and it's not true. >> let the data speak for

itself. here is texas governor rick perry, and rick scott talk about it today on fox. take a listen. >> it will be governor romney's plan -- >> but are you for that? >> i'm going to support a plan to make sure our medicare recipients we have 3.3 million of them in florida. i'm going to continue to make sure they get good care. >> we're going to have a conversation, and the idea we're going to draw up a piece of legislation here in august of 2012 is not correct. [ laughter ] >> are we going to see more of this kind of backing away do you think? and what message was it send to voters? >> i think we will see more backing away. medicare is usually popular across the entire spectrum. people describe themselves as tea party conservatives,

overwhelmingly they like the current medicare program. so my guess is that as this becomes clearer, that's at least representative ryan's plan and presumably romney, and when people see that in the plan, i think you'll see republicans backing away from it. >> we have been talking about medicare. i just have a quick question on the overall economic message, which of course is that paul ryan has been trying to bring back and we have had trickle-down economics but he wants to sort of explode it. i want people to hear from an economist who has studied this, does the trickle-down work? >> no. we have tried it again and again, and it doesn't work. the idea that people respond to

incentives sure. the idea that we should cut rich people's taxes and raise them on the middle class, and that will lead to more growth, no, there's no story there. >> all right. that's dean baker, appreciate you coming inside "the war room" again. coming up, we have been telling you what democrats like about running against paul ryan, and there's a lot. but what about him scares president obama's war room? we'll get into that right after the break. ♪

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♪ on the campaign front, both president obama and paul ryan spent their day lobbying for iowa's six electoral votes. according to the 2010 census

both states have a lot of people over the age of 65. florida is first, then maine, then west virginia, and then pennsylvania, and iowa is fifth with 14.9%, which could explain some of these headlines that the daily coast pulled from sunday morning papers. from the miami herald romney could hurt florida, paul ryan's plan to retool medicare poses troubles. romney's vp move may be risky in swing states. with ryan in medicare key, florida seniors weren't fans of bold policy that intruded on health care. and joining us from washington, d.c. to break down the ryan pick and how the obama war room is

going to react, karl frisch. he directed howard dean's multimedia communication ever fort. and with me here inside room" is susan kennedy, who served as chief of staff to former california governor arnold schwarzenegger. so i have two slippers here. >> he out ranks me. >> thanks you guy for coming inside "the war room." susan let me start with you, on those headlines that we were just discussing. should the romney team be worried? >> i think they do have to be worried about florida, but i think they had to anticipate they were going to have that kind of reaction. the fact is, the obama health care law was not very popular with voters and when you look at the polls it's almost as

unpopular as the ryan medicare plan is -- >> do you think people can distinguish between obamacare and the ryan plan? >> not yet. and ryan's mother living in florida. she can is a secret weapon that i think the campaign has to use and will use. >> karl today you wrote the political spin could not have been more blatant . . . so is ryan going to be attractive to young voters which have obviously here to for been more inclined to the democratic party. >> no. [ laughter ] >> no, at the end of the day, paul ryan really is the benjamin button of american politics.

he is a 75 year old man in the body of a young man. to use a word that will be -- you know spark memories for our elder americans, he is a mimiograph of the republican establishment. and if anything he is going to worsen the democratic death march that republicans are on. with larger numbers of minorities and young people hitting the ballot boxes every year, somebody like ryan doesn't support students would ruin pell grants and make it harder to get, would cut medicare and then also is a culture warrior. he got his start working for sam brownback one of the biggest anti-gay bigots in the history of the senate.

so he's precisely the type of person that has turned independents and young people off from the republican party and just because he is young, doesn't mean they are going to fall for it. if he's a gym rat a fitness freak -- >> he is not going to fool anyone is what you are telling me. >> no. >> so the republicans are nervous, though. and sometimes we get a little bit of a glimpse inside of the republican war room. "politico" reported on a memo today advising the republicans on how to discuss medicare and this is what they said . . . obviously susan, if the nrcc is worried, could ryan's selection you know -- they are coaching people. >> yeah. the democrats have the exact same memo using the exact same

phraseology, so that's not exactly magic -- >> well, unless we are talk about them. >> of course. i agree with what was said -- i think the youth vote is not going to be attracted to his social positions but i think ryan is a play for the independents. the independents will be more willing to have an honest debate around the physical situation in the country. >> but don't you think based on what karl said, the voters who care about social issues often -- >> ryan was picked to solidify and energize his republican base. 40 to 45% is always going to vote republican, and 40 to 45% is always going to vote republican -- >> thank god they did that before the convention, by the way. >> yeah. i am so excited about this pick for so many reasons, because i

think it will enable us to have an honest conversation. karl frisch and susan kennedy thanks so much, you guys for coming inside "the war room." up next so many bachelors and only one rose. brett ehrlich right after this.

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foot, and declared it a fit all of the elite spring to their loafers and cheered in unison. well, almost all. there were certain numbers who secretly sulked and cried into the mirror always a bride's maid never a bride. brett ehrlich tells us about their tail of woe. shhhh, brett's talking now >> so paul gets the vp nomination. these guys lose out. i'm so emotional there's nothing else to do but a joke dumb. chris christie didn't get the nomination, remember when i said this, if he's not the nominee, i'll eat my hat. there is only one problem, chris christie already ate my hat.

chris christie will hit the weight room and lose 200 pounds. it's a start. who cares about paul ryan. here's paul ryan wives. paul ryan's wife is so hot . . . so hot. poor tim pawlenty he is going to wrack havoc on the city! this vp announcement comes among fears that romney's popularity has peaked. now with ryan on the ticket it appears to have widow peaked. look at it it is beautiful. joke dumb. >> are you all right? that's a lot of jokes to dump on you. i'm done talking now. ♪ thank you, brett. and thanks to you for joining